Diverse tales are order of day at fest

Storytellers are once again about to converge upon northern Utah.

Weber State University's Storytelling Festival — which has not been held in 16 months but which will reconvene next week for its 11th year — will feature 54 student storytellers and 27 regional storytellers.

The main attraction, however, will be four major storytellers from out of state.

PATRICK BALL has a master's degree in history and intended to go to law school until he discovered the beauty of the old Celtic harp. "This harp is a unique instrument," Ball said by phone from Sebastopol, Calif.

"It's strung with brass wire by amazing craftspeople. They were magnificent instruments made of willow or other hardwoods. They played the harp with their fingernails — an unusual technique — and it made gorgeous sounds. It lasted 800 years. But 200 years ago, they all died out. The Irish changed the harp strings to gut, and the sound changed immensely."

Ball discovered the original-style harp in the 1980s, and it changed his career path. "I became one of the few people in the world who played this thing. I was one of the very first people in the modern era to do it."

After Ball performed at a storytelling festival in California, he got an offer to make a recording — and in 10 years, the recording sold a half-million copies. "Stories are always part of the show, but it is the sound of the instrument that people respond to."

Ball also believes that the Irish stories he tells are intended to be rhythmic or melodic in their delivery. "People from rural backgrounds have a more leisurely way of telling stories."

DIANE FERLATTE, who now lives in California, is originally from Louisiana, where the oral tradition is strong. She used to listen to family and neighbors swap stories on her grandparents' porch. But she got into the storytelling mode herself after she and her husband, Tom, adopted a 4-year-old boy who had been living in foster homes.

"Because he was a TV addict, he had no attention span," said Ferlatte, speaking by phone from Omaha, where she was doing another storytelling stint. "I started using sound effects, voices and my hands to read and tell him stories — and he was listening like it was live TV. It just went from there.

"My librarian was a storyteller, too, and that helped. I did it for the first time out of my house at church. A member of the congregation asked me to come to her children's school — and my career has grown from that. I think the oral tradition needs to be protected from technology like iPods and text messaging."